A funny system LOL
by Jecommenceapeteruncable
Summary: NOT FIC please don't read this if you want sleep tonight mouahhaha love u guy


Imagine Me And You

callunavulgari

Chapter 1: This Is Halloween

Chapter Text

According to Derek's mother, the annual trip to the pumpkin patch just outside of town has been a Hale tradition since she was a little girl. There was a certain charm to it when he was a kid, sitting in the backseat with Laura as his mom sang along to the old cassette that she'd found in a bargain bin at Goodwill. It was the best cassette, full of various Halloween classics. His mom used to say that it was the greatest find that she'd ever dug out of one of those bins, even if they didn't know the name of the mix itself, because the front flap had been torn out and the back had been coated in waxy orange crayon.

Back then, even the chill of the October air had been welcome, his breath fogging the air as they searched for the best pumpkin in the patch. The pumpking, his mom called it.

It's not the same, without her.

"Cheer up, grumpy," Laura chirps at him from the front seat, flicking Cora's hands away from the volume control without looking away from Derek in the rearview. He narrows his eyes at her and huffs.

They aren't listening to mom's unnamed cassette, though it had survived the fire — tucked safely away in mom's old sedan. The first time they'd tried to listen to it, after, before they'd found Cora again, Laura had been forced to park the car on the side of the road so they could go and shred a small tree. They haven't tried again since, so the cassette has been collecting dust in storage with the rest of the things that survived the fire. Instead, they're listening to some poppy Halloween mix that Laura had found on the internet. It's horrible and Derek hates it, but his sisters like it, so he'll put up with shitty Fall Out Boy covers for a day.

"Tell you what," Laura says, parking the car next to a battered Ford that was probably ancient in the 90's. Deftly, she flicks the car off with a flick of her wrist and turns to look at them, one eyebrow arched. "How about we make this experience a little more interesting?"

Cora snorts. "Interesting, how?"

Laura's eyes glint a certain way, the faintest suggestion of red around the rim of her eyes. Derek knowsthat look. It means that he should probably turn around while he's still ahead, that way his older sister doesn't completely steamroll him into her schemes. His younger sister, unfortunately, hasn't quite caught on yet. "Whoever finds the pumpking this year gets out of their least favorite chore until Christmas."

Cora straightens in her seat, her own eyes narrowing. "All the chores."

"Nope," Laura says cheerfully. "Least favorite. Until Christmas. That means no dealing with dirty dishes for nearly two and a half months, Cor. Take it or leave it."

"What happens to the losers?" Derek asks, tapping his claws against the back of Laura's seat. There has to be a catch. There's always a catch.

Laura shrugs. "They have to split off on doing the winner's chosen chore for two and a half months. That's it."

He blinks at her, still wary, but Cora nods decisively. "Done."

Derek sighs, shoving himself out of the car and glaring at the nearest pumpkin, which is lopsided and demented looking. He's going to hate this game. He can already tell. "Fine, I'll play along."

.

Derek was right. He does hate the game. It wasn't that he'd forgotten how competitive his sisters were. It was more like he'd shoved it to the side in his mind, because for the most part, if it didn't concern taking votes on what to eat for dinner, their competitive streaks didn't matter.

He had forgotten, a little bit, how competitive he got when faced with the determined line of Laura's jaw or Cora's habit of fighting dirty.

Laura spends her time searching the pumpkins mindlessly with a steely-eyed focus that would have put mom's to shame. Cora though, leaves a trail of scents all over the place, leading Derek on a wild goose chase every time he gets a whiff of her (false) elation.

He finds it two hours into the game, eyes alighting on a pumpkin so perfectly round and picturesque that it puts some of the pumpkings from their childhood to shame. It's only a row over, and it'll be easy enough to get to, he thinks, already starting that way.

He's so focused on the pumpkin itself that he doesn't register the stranger's presence until there's a pair of pale hands brushing his justas his fingers are closing around the stupid gourd.

Derek blinks, more than a little startled, head jerking up—

The guy who's got his hands on Derek's pumpkin is young, probably close to Cora's age, those nebulous couple of years in the early twenties that might mean the boy has graduated college already, but is just as likely to have only recently started. Or not gone at all. He has sharp features; pointed nose, perfect jawline, and cheeks that probably only lost the remains of their baby fat in the last year or so. The most arresting thing about him though are his eyes, big and dark — bambi eyes, Laura would say — which... narrow after a split second of surprise.

Just like that, the stranger is baring his teeth in a rictus of a fixed grin that have Derek's hackles up immediately, the gesture too wolfish to do anything but knock him off guard. There's false cheer in the boy's voice when he opens his mouth and says, "I know I'm a catch and all, but you really didn't have to grab my pumpkin for me, dude. I've got this."

Derek narrows his eyes, then decides to take a page out of the boy's book, baring his own teeth in a near perfect mirror to the kid's smile. "Oh no, you must be mistaken. See, this is my pumpkin. Pretty sure yours is a couple rows over."

The kid tightens his grip, fingers brushing Derek's as they both shift to get a better grasp of the damn thing. Derek tugs, gently, and is gratified when the boy lets out a whoosh of air, stumbling forward a step or two. "Nope," he tells Derek cheerfully. "This one is definitely mine."

"Yeah, I don't think so. Let go."

"How about no?"

Derek could win this little tug of war easily if he wanted. All he'd have to do is just loosen his control on his wolf for a second, and he'd be walking away with this year's pumpking. No laundry for two and a half months.

The kid is cute though, and Derek really doesn't want to make him fall face first into the mud. That's what he tells himself; it's just to save the kid a little bit of face.

Unfortunately for Derek, he'd underestimated the kid. The next time he tugs on the pumpkin with a hiss, they both go toppling over, and then they're wrestling in themud for a pumpkin.

Derek's competitive, but there are limits. Even if the guy does look a little bit too good pinned under him, breathless and panting.

He lets the kid pin him, his knees on either side of Derek's hips as he holds the pumpkin just out of reach. When Derek relents with a sigh, he crows in triumph, punching a fist into the air and doing a ridiculous little shimmy that brings both of their attentions to the… intimacy of their positions.

"Stiles," the kid says once they're both right side up again.

Derek's nose wrinkles, brushing mud off his shirt before realizing what a lost cause it is. He's filthy. The kid has a streak of mud running from his jaw to his hairline. Neither of them are getting any cleaner until there's a hot shower and a change of clothes involved. "What?"

The kid rolls his eyes, shifting the pumpkin so it's tucked up against his hip. "My name," he tells Derek, sounding amused. "It's Stiles. I figure if I'm going to wrestle a complete stranger for a pumpkin the least I can do is offer my name afterwards."

"Stiles," Derek tries, testing the way the name sits on his tongue. It's a weird name, sure, but it kind of suits him. The kid — Stiles — is giving him an expectant look. "I'm Derek."

Stiles nods, bouncing faintly on the balls of his feet. "Derek," he breathes, like he's testing the weight of the name too. He grins, bright and blinding, which Derek guesses means that he likes the sound of it. "I'd offer to shake your hand, but since we almost got to second base a minute ago, I'd say we're past that point."

"I see how it is," Derek deadpans. "You were just using me for my body. I'll never find a husband now."

"Please, it was all for the pumpkin. My one true love." Stiles presses a quick kiss to the round curving side of it, grinning cheekily when Derek rolls his eyes.

"I hope you know you just made me lose out on skipping laundry duty until Christmas," Derek remarks casually, flicking some mud off of his sleeve. "Let that eat away at your conscience."

"Yeah, well," Stiles sighs. "My best friend's daughter needed the best pumpkin in the patch for her school's Jack-O-Lantern carving competition, so…"

Derek huffs. "Yeah, okay, you win."

.

Laura wins. Of course, this means that Derek's the one who's going to be cooking for the next two months because Cora's idea of cooking is mac and cheese, hot pockets, and take out, and they both know that Derek won't let them all suffer. Which, he realizes, means that he's going to be responsible for Thanksgiving this year.

There's the catch he was looking for.

Curiously, neither of his sister's ask why he's covered in mud and reeking of a human, so Derek doesn't offer up the information.

It's not like he'll ever see Stiles again anyway.

Chapter Text

Stiles has no idea what he was thinking when he waved off his dad's offer to drive him home with a short and sweet, "No, it's totally okay, it's a great night to walk home. Don't worry about it, I don't live that far. It'll be awesome. A little fresh air never hurt anyone."

It's a horrible night to walk home. Alone.

Technically the sun is still out, but it's just a smudge of orange and pink on the horizon as the rest of the sky rapidly takes on that bruised purple color of impending nightfall. It's kind of pretty, in the way that all sunsets are, but Stiles is more concerned about the way that the fading light is making the shadows grow on the pavement.

He isn't a superstitious guy. Heisn't, no matter what Scott says. Yes, he had his phase where he was obsessed with ghosts and goblins, as all teenagers do, but it's not like he's ever really believed in it. He has no intention of chasing spectres across the country. Whenever he and Scott marathon shit like Ghost Hunters, he spends most of his time laughing through the horrible scripts. He's the guy who shouts at the idiot characters in scary movies, not the dude who cowers in a corner until the scary music stops.

But there's nothing wrong with a little healthy paranoia. He's the Sheriff's son. It's a thing. Beacon Hills may be a quiet, sleepy little town, but even it has it's share of bruises.

Which isn't to say that he's expecting a serial killer to pop up and throw him in their trunk, but well, if some crazy fucker can burn down the Hale house and get away with it, there is always a possibility that Stiles might be kidnapped on his way home.

He shivers.

If he doesn't freeze first.

So yeah, telling his dad that he didn't need a ride might have been a mistake. Because in addition to the creepy shadows and the sense of foreboding he gets every time a car passes, it's cold as fuckingballs.

He's actually considering sucking it up and calling Lydia to come pick him up when he spots a car up ahead, loitering in the driveway of a picturesque little house with freaking tulips growing along it's front pathway.

Tulips. In October. What the fuck.

He pauses, because tulips, and it takes him a minute or so to realize that not only is the car idling in the driveway, but that there's someone outside the car, leaning up against the driver's side door.

Stiles blinks, wondering why someone would be stupid enough to leave their heated car in favor of braving the cold, especially when the heated car in question is right there. Running. Presumably with the heat still on.

Then he sees what the figure is wearing and thinks, oh, that makes sense.

Because the car's owner is an idiot. That's the only explanation for why the man is wearing threadbare jeans, a henley, and not much else. No winter coat. No windbreaker. No leather jacket to match his shiny muscle car. Just jeans and a shirt. That's it.

Whatever. It's a full moon tonight and if his dad's to be believed, people are a little crazier this time of the month.

He keeps walking, getting closer and closer to passing the car and the dumbass who owns it until he stops again, cocking his head. Stiles squints, trying to place the linebacker worthy body and the Tony Stark level of sculpted facial hair.

Right. Pumpkin guy. Derek No Last Name, because Stiles never gave his.

Only one person knows about Pumpkin Guy. Two if Stiles counts Allison, which he does, because there's no way to tell Scott anything and not have Allison find out about it. It's not a secret or anything, so Stiles doesn't care much that she knows, but still. There's no way he wasn't gonna tell his buddy the harrowing tale of how Stiles got Savannah the best pumpkin in the patch.

"Hey," he calls, grin playing around the edges of his lips. He blinks away the thought of how the last time Stiles had seen this man, he'd ended up in his lap. "Pumpkin guy!"

Derek turns to look at him, blinks, and arches both eyebrows. He doesn't seem to be at all surprised to see him. But then again, Stiles has been loitering on the sidewalk a bit longer than necessary. "Stiles. And here I thought I told you my name."

Stiles snorts, meandering closer. His feet crunch over the grass of tulip-growing-person's lawn and he thinks it's odd, that this person can keep flowers alive in the middle of an unseasonably cold October, but can't keep the frost away from their grass. Maybe they care about their flowers more than the grass. "Pumpkin guy's got a better ring to it."

"Maybe. It's definitely better thanStiles."

"Hey!" he protests, stopping a foot away from Derek and jabbing a finger into the center of his chest. "I'll have you know that Stiles is an awesome name."

"Yeah," Derek deadpans. "Maybe to an elementary schooler."

Stiles hums, shifting back and forth on the balls of his feet. Did that curtain just move? He's pretty sure that curtain just moved. "That would make sense," he agrees, squinting at the window until he's sure that the curtain is planning on remaining stationary. "Since I was in fourth grade when I chose it."

Derek blinks. "So Stiles isn't—"

"Nope, not my real name. My actual name's a bit of a mouthful, and going by my last name seems pretentious as fuck, so I put a bit of a spin on it." Jazz hands, he thinks, wiggling his fingers in Derek's face.

Derek, who's frowning, brows furrowed as if deep in thought. Probably trying to figure out Stiles last name, which, might as well help with that. "Stilinski, if that's what's giving you the constipation face."

Derek's frown deepens, giving an aborted little twitch of the head in the direction of the house, as if he's hearing something that Stiles isn't. "The Sheriff's kid," Derek muses, nodding. "I forgot that he had a son in college."

"You know my dad?"

Derek gives him a look. "Stiles. It's a small town. Everyone knows your dad."

"Huh. Guess that makes sense." Stiles had forgotten about that. "So, speaking of things making sense or in this case, not, is there a reason you're hanging out in someone's driveway? With your car still running? And y'know, not wearing a coat of any kind? I mean, that henley is doing wonders for your girlish figure, but it doesn't look particularly warm."

Derek sighs, rolling his eyes as if extremely put upon. "My sister's been having a chat with Mrs. Perkins for the last half an hour. I thought that if I got out of the car it might guilt her into hurrying the hell up," he says, pitching his voice louder on those last words, like his sister has any hope of hearing them inside the house. They aren't speaking that loudly.

"Uh huh," Stiles responds, giving Derek a look of squinty-eyed suspicion. "And how long have you been trying to guilt your sister — who probably can't see you, I might add — into hurrying the hell up."

Derek coughs. "About twenty minutes."

Typical. Stiles barely knows this guy and can already tell that he really is a complete and total idiot. Yeah, that's right. Wrestle a stranger for a pumpkin. Stand in the subarctic in shorts. Real smart. "Jesus dude," he sighs, hesitating for a fraction of a second before raising his hands to the scarf around his throat. "You're a fucking mess."

"What are you doing?" Derek asks, eyes widening when Stiles takes another step towards him — the scarf, which is still warm to the touch from Stiles' body heat, stretched between his hands. Maybe Derek thinks he's going to choke him with it.

He's tempted, he really is, but instead Stiles allows himself one more step into Derek's bubble before looping it around the other man's neck.

"Saving you from a horrible death via pneumonia," he answers, breathing lightly through his nose. Up close, Derek smells very subtly of some kind of spice. It's a light enough fragrance that it might be some kind of cologne, but is more likely the lingering smells of cinnamon cocoa or a couple hours spent up close and personal with dinner. Or dessert. It's more of a cinnamon-y smell, and most meals that he can think of don't involve that.

Stiles takes a minute or so to fuss with the scarf, making sure that it's knotted securely at the base of Derek's throat before he tugs playfully on the ends and steps back. When he looks up at Derek, his cheeks are tinged red.

"Aww," Stiles croons, reaching out to pat Derek's cheek. "I didn't take you for a blusher. That is adorable."

The flush spreads to the tips of Derek's ears. It really is adorable.

"I can't take this," Derek tells him, hands twitching to his throat, like he's going to take it off. "You'll be cold now."

Stiles narrows his eyes, his own hands darting out to wrap around Derek's wrists before the dumbass can undo all of his hard work. "Nope," he chirps, squeezing the wrists that he has hostage. "No way. I've got my trusty coat, which is something that you should invest in. Besides," he adds glibly. "I was planning on donating it to Goodwill anyway."

One eyebrow twitches upwards as Derek pointedly glances down at the fabric, which is soft and weathered with age, the once vibrant purple now faded to a kind of lavender.

"Okay, fine," Stiles admits, his own cheeks heating up. "So maybe it was my mother's, but you need it more than I do right now, so…"

Those tulips really are fascinating. Maybe they're secretly man-eating plants and if he stares at them long enough they'll tapdance down the driveway on their roots and swallow him up before he combusts. It wouldn't exactly be a manly death, but Stiles would take death by tulips over death by embarrassment any day. And manly deaths are overrated, anyway. A death is a death. Except death by flying toilet seat. That's just embarrassing.

"Hey," Derek says, his voice pitched low and soft. He bumps their shoulders together, gently, though it still almost knocks Stiles over. When he looks back, Derek is smiling at him, just this little twitch at the corners of his mouth. It makes him look younger, which makes no sense. It's a facial tic that's a hop, skip, and a jump away from the smirk Stiles has already seen on him, and that didn't make him look any younger. "Thanks."

"Yeah," Stiles breathes, a bit dreamily. He blinks the glazed look from his eyes when he notices Derek's smile widen and realizes that he's the reason that just happened. He coughs. "Um. I mean, you're welcome, dude. Not every day I come across some poor underdressed fucker walking back from my dad's. But pay it forward and all that, right? Right. I'm just gonna… go."

He turns away from Derek, takes two steps, and then remembers, turning back towards the house and cupping his hands around his mouth. "Hey you!" he shouts. The tulips, alarmingly, twitch. "Derek's sister! Stop making your poor brother wait out in the cold already! And make him buy a coat!"

And with that, he salutes Derek, and half-walks, half-jogs away.

It's a good thing Stiles only lives a block or so away once he turns left at McCutcheon. He doesn't want to think about how horrible it would be if Derek's sister came out andoffered him a ride.

No, this is definitely better, he thinks, finally turning down the street so he's no longer in Derek's line of sight. His house won't come into view for another couple of minutes, but it's not far, and Jesus, good thing too, because it's cold as hell. He misses that scarf already.

Chapter 3: I Put A Spell On You

Chapter Text

There's been a moving truck in front of the house next door since last Thursday.

It shows up at odd times of the day, is there for a couple hours at most and once the crew of sweaty men that Cora and Laura like to ogle have done their job, it leaves again. Not particularly notable.

What is notable is the fact that it has taken their new neighbors an entire week to move in. Derek isn't an expert on moving by anyone's standards. Before Cora, he and Laura had pretty much always just grabbed the duffel bags containing their clothes and skipped state lines to the new hotel of the week. That was it. Cut and dry, no point prolonging the inevitable when you're running for your life.

Even after Cora, it had been simple enough. Their little sister had come back to them with even fewer possessions than they had, so it was as easy as unlocking the front door and making a nest in the living room of ragged blankets and old clothes.

They've come a long way since then, making the house into as much of a home as they were comfortable with. They'd acquired furniture. Stupid little knick knacks that Laura kept bringing home from thrift shops or antique stores that smelt of mothballs. A couple things they'd found in their family's vault. A variety of clothes and shoes that didn't always come in some variation of leather or plaid.

But all of that had come later, after living in an almost empty house for a month and a half.

Derek doesn't know how long it takes for normal people to move all of their worldly possessions into a house, but even discounting his experiences a week seems like a bit much.

Even stranger though, is how he's yet to set eyes on any of their new neighbors.

"You're paranoid, Der-bear," Laura had teased him yesterday morning over breakfast, crumbs still clinging stubbornly to the corners of her lips. Derek, who had been on the couch, threw a pillow at her.

He was paranoid. Derek would own up to that. He had good reason to be.

Still, it bothered him.

The things that he knows about his new neighbors are as follows:

First, there are three of them. He can hear their heartbeats at night if he concentrates hard enough and he has because he has every reason to doubt other people. Secondly, two of them are female and the third is male. All three of them are loud at points, but the male is definitely the most talkative of the bunch. And lastly, one of the girls has red hair, because two days ago he'd caught a glimpse of it disappearing past the front door.

"You're doing it again," Cora sighs, watching him from her perch atop the kitchen table. If Laura saw her, she'd flip a gasket. As it is, Laura is off in San Francisco for some new special effects showcase for the rest of the weekend, so what she doesn't know won't hurt her.

"Doing what?"

Cora shifts, tucking her feet under her. He scowls when her converses leave scuff marks on the edge. "That creepy thing where you watch the house next door like a doberman on steroids. They aren't going to attack us. Down boy."

He shoots a glare her way and goes back to scrubbing the pan from last night's dinner. "The dog jokes still aren't funny, Cora."

"Oh, I beg to differ," she tells him, lips tilting upwards at the corners. It's more of a smirk than a smile, but Cora and him are alike that way. Laura smiles enough for the both of them. "Your scowly little face is just as funny now as it was when you were twelve. It warms the cockles of my blackened heart."

Instead of bothering with a reply to that, Derek rolls his eyes and goes back to the dishes. He doesn't hate doing them as much as Cora does, but no one likes doing dishes. It's a fact of life, right alongside centipedes being creepy as fuck and vampires being a myth. He listens to his sister crunch through handful after handful of the cheerios that she's eating straight from the box, the heathen, and doesn't think about the fact that only one of his neighbors are home right now.

He doesn't.

.

"Laura says to rake the backyard," Cora greets him the next morning, perched on the end of his bed in the rattiest sweatpants he's ever seen and a toothbrush dangling from her mouth.

He wrinkles his nose, stifling a yawn with the back of his hand. It's too fucking early for this. And everything smells like spearmint now. "Laura isn't here. She can't tell me what to do."

Cora snorts. "Sure she can't."

"She can't."

She smirk-smiles at him through a mouthful of foam and… ugh, spits into the cup of water he'd brought with him to bed last night. "But you're going to do it anyway. You always do."

He groans and takes the covers with him when he rolls over. Maybe if she can't see him she'll leave him alone. It won't be the first quality that she's shared with a tyrannosaurus.

She doesn't leave him alone. Instead, she pokes him in the ribs until he's forced to get up and physically remove her from his room.

"You know you won't be able to fall back asleep now that you've gotten up," she calls through the door, triumphant. He scowls at the sunlight that's just starting to slant through the blinds and hates her for being right.

.

It's a shitty day for raking up the yard. It's cold, for one. And while it isn't raining just yet, he's pretty sure that the storm clouds on the horizon means that he's going to see some before he's done.

He'd hesitated before grabbing the scarf that Stiles had given him off of his dresser. It's been sitting there for nearly a week and a half now, just waiting for Derek to do something with it, trace amounts of a woman's perfume woven into it's scent.

At first, he'd considered tracking Stiles down and returning it. Derek knows what it's like to cling to a lost loved one's possessions. The things that he and Laura managed to save from the fire they hoard away, most of the items confined to their safety deposit box in the hopes of preserving the scent of family for as long as they can. To give something that precious away so easily, just because a near-stranger is cold? It's unthinkable.

But after Laura had given him shit for it — because of course she'd heard their entire conversation — she'd pointed out that tracking Stiles down to return the item might be slightly creepy.

He'd left it there, draped across his dresser next to a crappy polaroid candid of his mom poking his dad in the cheek. What else was he going to do with it?

"Wear it, obviously," Laura had snorted. "The kid had a point there at least. You really need to stop failing so hard at seeming human and wear a goddamn jacket outside."

So after a moment's hesitation, he carefully loops it around his neck, letting the trailing ends of the scarf rest over his dad's old leather jacket.

"You look good in purple," Cora teases.

"Do you have nothing better to do than follow me around?" he growls, popping open the lock on the sliding glass door that leads out into the backyard.

"Nope."

"Good." He grins at her, taking extra care to show as much teeth as he can. "Then you can help me outside."

She snorts. "Yeah, how about no. Even if I wanted to do, which I don't, there's only one rake."

"Use a broom then."

"You can't use a broom on leaves, Derek. That's barbaric."

He scowls. "Your face is barbaric."

Cora blinks at him, shifting slow and purposeful, and grins at him with a mouthful of fangs. "It is now."

"Mature," he sighs, pointedly turning his back on her. The door jams a bit when it slides open, which has made him nervous since day one. Their level of strength and glass don't mix at the best of times. He already knows how this door is going to meet its end, it just comes down to who and when. "Well, if you feel like helping, you know where I'll be."

"I won't!" she yells back as the door closes behind him, leaving him alone with a shitty rake that they found in the garage when they moved in, a metric fuckton of leaves, and cloudy gray skies.

.

It takes Derek maybe five minutes to realize that he's not alone as he thought. Which as far as he's concerned that's five minutes too long, even if the person in question was half hidden behind the neighbor's shed.

Derek doesn't look very closely, because he can already hear Cora yelling at him for being a creeper again. However, from what he can tell at first glance, it's the decidedly not female neighbor. He's got his earbuds in, blaring some absolutely hideous rap that's turned up so loud it's a wonder that Derek didn't hear him the second he stepped out of the house.

But he isn't doing anything threatening, except for the occasional twirl around the yard as if the rake is his dance partner, and at that point he's only proving to be a danger to himself.

It grates at the back of his mind to relax his guard, but after a couple minutes of nothing more dangerous than the aforementioned dancing and badly mangled lyrics, Derek makes himself ignore his presence.

He's always loved this backyard. It's what drew him in, initially, already considering just what sort of flowers he would plant around the back patio as they toured the rest of the house. The second spring they'd lived there, his garden had flourished.

The only downside is the trees. Most of the time, he loves them. While most backyards have two or three trees at most, theirs has nine. Laura loves them, saying that it reminds her of their home in the preserve, and she's right. It's a spacious yard, so while it's not as overcrowded as it could be, it's dense enough that in the summer there are certain areas where the sun never reaches the ground. He loves running through the preserve, always will, but it's nice to have a little bit of the forest in their backyard again.

He does not love them when fall rolls around, because more often than not, he's the one who gets to rake up all of the leaves. Around this time of year, he hates their two big-leaf maples. Hates them. Worse than the flowering dogwood. At least that has the decency to not get all over the yard.

Thirty minutes later, Derek has a decent-sized pile coming along in the northwest corner of the yard and a much smaller one on the side closest to the house. He squints at the worst section of leaves and grass, right under the two maples and considers starting a third pile just for that section when a loud yell startles him out of his thoughts.

He glances up just in time to see his neighbor body slam the enormous pile that the kid had just finished raking up.

What the hell, Derek thinks, staring wide-eyed as the stranger bursts from the pile. He spits leaves left and right, and then, because he is apparently twelve years old, throws his head back and laughs, bright and delighted.

This will probably be better for everyone involved if he just pretends like he didn't see anything. He turns away, fixing his eyes to the ground and mechanically starts raking up leaves again.

The only problem is that now that the kid has caught his attention, he's finding it difficult to not focus on the sounds coming from a hundred feet away. Every little chuckle, every crunching leaf, has his full attention.

After that, it doesn't even take a full minute before he feels eyes on him.

A heartbeat stutters. Derek blinks down at the ground in surprise.

"Hey, Derek!"

His head whips back up. "Stiles?"

It is Stiles — wrapped tight in a coat that looks as if it was pulled straight out of a ski magazine and a beanie hugging the curve of his skull. No wonder Derek hadn't recognized him from afar. He looks like a marshmallow.

Stiles edges closer, until he's toeing the line of Derek's property, and smiles sheepishly. "I don't suppose you missed my impression of a fourth grader?" he asks hopefully.

Derek snorts. "I could say that I didn't see anything, but I'd be lying."

"Lame." Stiles groans, cheeks going a dull red. He ducks his head, glancing from Derek to the pile of leaves now mostly askew in his yard and back again. There's another stutter of a heartbeat as Stiles' breath catches in his throat. "Hey! You're wearing the scarf!"

Derek blinks down at the scarf still wrapped around his neck, fingers darting up to the fabric. "Oh, yeah, I am. Sorry, it was cold and I wasn't sure when I was going to see you again. Did you want it back?"

Stiles shakes his head vigorously, beaming. "No way, dude. That was a gift."

"But—"

"Tell you what," Stiles says, wagging a finger in Derek's direction. "If you're that determined to get it back to me, you can give it back, but only when you buy a scarf of your own. No sooner."

Derek nods absently, wondering if that will ever happen. Maybe Laura will get him one for Christmas. There's no way he's going to buy one on his own.

"What are you doing, anyway?" Derek asks, curious despite himself. There's no way that Stiles is actually his new neighbor. Derek would have noticed something — at least recognized his scent — and he hadn't really thought that Stiles was old enough to have bought a house in a neighborhood like this.

Stiles gives him a look, politely disbelieving, and looks around pointedly. "Pretty sure I'm raking my yard, man."

"Oh," Derek says. Apparently he was wrong. "You just moved in, right?"

"Yeah, last Thursday."

Right. That means that Stiles is one of the neighbors that's taken a full week and a half to move his shit in. Derek frowns, propping his chin up on the end of the rake. "Can I ask you a question?"

Stiles blinks and shuffles a step or two closer, just over the edge of the property line. "Shoot."

"Why the hell has it taken you three so fucking long to move in?"

For a long moment, Stiles just stares at him. And then he laughs.

It's the same laugh as before, head thrown back, pure impish delight coloring the sound. Against all odds, Derek realizes that he kind of likes it.

"Oh man," Stiles sighs, wiping the corners of his eyes. "Yeah, about that. I don't know if you've seen them at all, but my roommates are both chicks. And while I'm the last person to stereotype someone, Lydia, man. She's got a fuckton of clothes. I am not exaggerating here, buddy. Her bedroom's closet is actually bigger than my old room and she's still taken over the guest bedroom. She almost bit off my head the other day for dropping a shoebox that contained a pair of stilettos that cost three grand."

Derek winces. "That sounds… trying."

Stiles laughs again. "Trust me, dude. It is. Erica's going to lose it if we have to take the moving truck out to Lydia's old place one more time."

"How'd you end up with them as roommates? "

"Lydia's content letting her dad try to buy her affection if it means she doesn't have to do dorm living and we've been good friends for a couple of years now. When Erica's housing request fell through, we invited her to room with us for a while. Pretty sure she regrets taking us up on it already." Stiles shrugs, one smooth up and down motion of his marshmallow clad shoulders. "But hey, free room in anobscenely nice house, so no complaints here. I don't even have to share a bathroom."

"Both of my sisters live with me," Derek tells him. "Laura and I — the older one — we used to live in a one bedroom back in New York. Having her own bathroom was on her list of things that she wouldn't compromise on."

"Only child," Stiles grins. "This is my first time living with someone that's not my dad, so it will probably take some getting used to."

"Have fun with that."

"Oh, I'm sure I will. Oodles of fun."

There's a raven perched on a telephone wire above Stiles' head, shuffling back and forth as if it doesn't know what to do with itself. It crows, once, and Derek narrows his eyes at it. When she was a kid, Laura did a project on the relationship between ravens and wolves. It started an unfortunate obsession that's carried on into her adult life and as such, Derek's developed an extreme dislike towards the birds. Which is unfortunate, because Laura seems to be a magnet for them.

"So," Stiles says, breaking Derek's staring contest with the bird. It crows once more and flutters away. "You seem to have a lot of leaves over here."

Derek looks at the ground, which hasn't changed one bit since he last looked at it. He looks back at Stiles. "Yeah."

Stiles grins at him, shimmying his way into Derek's space and wiggling his eyebrows. It looks ridiculous. "Any chance you want to hand 'em over?"

Derek sighs. "You're just going to jump in them, aren't you?"

Stiles winks at him. "Hey, if you play your cards right, I might even let you jump in with me."

Derek looks from the piles of leaves, then back to Stiles, who's still grinning impishly at him, eyes sparking beta bright when a ray of sunshine makes it's way through the clouds. Maybe it won't rain after all.

"Yeah," he says, breathing deep. "Okay. We can do that."

.

Stiles does end up tugging Derek down into the leaves with him. It has the unfortunate timing of coinciding with Cora opening the back door and yelling out, "Hey lover boy, you should ask your new friend if he wants to have dinner with us. I'm making steaks!"

And then she slams the door shut again, leaving Derek on his back in the leaves, cheeks burning. He coughs.

"So uh," he says. "Dinner?"

Chapter 4: Thriller

"Wow, someone came his brains out tonight."

Stiles blinks himself out of the blissful haze he's been floating on for the last two hours, gaze refocusing on the television which is playing… ugh, Jersey Shore. What. Mindlessly, he mashes a couple buttons on the remote and sighs happily when some documentary takes it's place. He'll take creepy deep sea creatures over Snooki any day.

Erica's sitting on the coffee table, heels on the floor beside her. She looks like she just got back from a date with Boyd, but she must have made a pit stop to her bathroom, because her face is flushed and clear of any signs of makeup. Why she would take the time to wash her face but not change into her comfy cozies is beyond him.

He wonders how long she's been there. "What?"

She snorts, arching one eyebrow when he tugs the blanket tighter around him. "I said," she purrs, voice taking on a smoky inflection. It's the one she usually uses when she's trying to persuade Stiles into keeping Lydia occupied for the night so she can have some alone time with Boyd. He's been living with her for a week and a half and he's already heard that tone of voice three times. "That you either just got laid spectacularly or Lydia's been sharing her not-so-secret stash of happy pills."

Stiles rolls his eyes, tucking his feet under him. Even then, the smile doesn't fade.

"Jesus," Erica whispers, crawling onto the couch next to him and tucking her cold toes under the blanket, wriggling them until she's got them wedged under his thigh. "Seriously, what's got you on cloud nine?"

He bites his lip, gnawing on it as he absentmindedly tracks the progress of a goblin shark across the screen. God, those fuckers are creepy. "Remember pumpkin guy?"

"Pumpkin guy who also happens to be the proud new owner of a sentimental token from your childhood because, and I quote, 'the fucker wasn't even wearing a coat'? That pumpkin guy?"

Stiles coughs, fidgeting until she smacks him. "Yeah, that would be the one."

"What about him?"

The smile is back. He can feel it stretching his mouth wide. The muscles of his jaw are actually starting to ache from smiling so hard. "Apparently he's our new neighbor."

Erica blinks, eyes going wide. "Right or left?"

"Right. The house with the gorgeous backyard."

"I thought that was the house with the two sisters? What were their names? They rhymed, I think."

"Yeah, Cora and Laura. They're his sisters." The grin broadens. It definitely hurts now. "I actually met the younger one tonight. She invited me in for dinner when she caught me and Derek rolling around in the leaves— and no, before you say anything, not like that."

Erica's second favorite predatory smile doesn't work quite as well without the dark red lipstick and come-hither eyeliner, but it's still a force to be reckoned with. When she combines it with a well timed eyebrow wiggle, it's super effective. "But you want it to be like that."

It's not a question. He decides to answer it anyway. "Of course I do! I mean, dude, you saw me right after the scarf incident. You still haven't let me live it down."

"And I never will." She shifts even closer to him, until she's pressed against his side. It's the least subtle request for cuddles ever, but he's known Erica since she wore sweats to school and didn't brush her hair for a whole year. He's used to it by now, so he obligingly wraps an arm around her shoulder. She sighs happily and lets her head thunk down onto the back of the couch. "So I'm assuming dinner went well?"

"You have no idea— okay, I mean, technically it could have been better. He could have fucked me on their ridiculously extravagant dining room table, for one." He closes his eyes and absolutely does not get caught up in a fantasy involving Derek's teeth scraping along his jaw with one of his best friends sitting next to him. "But uh, barring that. Yeah, it went well. Cora's a little intense and she burned my steak while theirs was practically oozing blood, but Derek tells me that cooking isn't either of his sisters strong suits."

Erica whistles. "You found a guy that can cook?"

"Hey! I cook!" Stiles protests. He gives it up as a lost cause when Erica just snorts, and happily adds, "He gardens too. Most of that backyard is his brainchild. Cora says that it's like a small, fragrant jungle in the spring."

"Huh," Erica hums, her eyes narrowed to slits. "Interesting. You actually want to see his garden of Eden. Didn't think you were the flowers type. In fact— I seem to recall you outlawing them from the house when Boyd left me roses a few days ago."

Heat swamps over his cheeks. He can actually track the progress of the blood rushing to his face right now. "They made my eyes itch!"

Erica wriggles into a more comfortable position, making grabby motions at the remote until Stiles passes it over. She immediately starts flicking through the channels; Stiles is a little sad to see the goblin shark go. "Sweetie," she sighs, patting his arm. "You threw the roses I got from myboyfriend out a second story window because your eyes got a little red. Now you're making cow eyes over your boy toy's biblical garden. Trust me, the garden is notwhat you're excited about."

And okay, she has a point. Stiles has never been one with nature. Nature has been his sworn enemy since he got poison oak at camp the summer of third grade. But the way Cora had talked about it, and the way Derek's eyes lit up when he joined in on the conversation… they may have made a believer out of him, if only because he's spent the last few hours imagining a shirtless Derek bent over a flower bed, covered in a sheen of sweat and dirt.

"Okay," he admits. "You're right. I just want to defile him in his botanical paradise."

Erica, who has finally settled on some romcom about soul mates and timers — and wait, what? — snorts.

.

"Stiles wants to fuck our neighbor," Erica tells Lydia later, tossing her hair back with a smirk.

Lydia's date was a bore, which meant that the second she got home she kicked off her outrageously expensive shoes and demanded they turn on the Notebook. So now Stiles has no escape route, sandwiched between the two of them and uncomfortably aware of the fact that in an hour or so he's going to have to deal with not one, but two women sobbing into his shoulders.

"Which one?" Lydia asks mildly, fanning her nails out and eying Stiles' work with a critical eye. Thankfully, she deems it worthy and leans back to shove her feet into his lap. Stiles sighs and sets the little brush against her pinky toe.

"The brother next door," Erica confides with a wink, leaning around Stiles' elbow to get at the pretzels.

Lydia blinks. "Laura and Cora have a brother?"

"Yup."

Lydia hums thoughtfully, clucking her tongue when Stiles purposefully gets paint all over the inside of her toe. "If he's half as attractive as his sisters, I really don't blame him."

Stiles grumbles, not looking up when on-screen, Rachel McAdams jumps into the arms of her true love. "Can we please stop having this conversation. Any time now."

.

Two days later, he and Erica pregame their Friday night with a round of beers and decorate the entire house with old Halloween decorations. It's a little late for it, most of the way through October, but as Erica tells him, it's never too late for decorations.

So they spend the majority of their day covering the house with kitschy Halloween decorations that Stiles' mother used to pick up like clockwork and going out to buy the most garish blow up figures for the yard. They carefully weave fluorescent purple lights through the bushes lining their front walk and when that's done, gleefully spread fake spider webs over trees and bush alike. No plant is safe from their wrath. Their squirrelly, squirrelly wrath.

When Lydia gets home, she takes one look at them — Stiles, with his foot trapped in a rabbit hole concealed by the prickly devil bush next to their porch and Erica, red-faced with laughter on the ground beside him — and sighs, producing two huge bottles of wine from her purse, and explains, "Because I have the feeling that I'm going to need it."

It only goes downhill from there.

Lydia, while the most stunning genius, is downright nasty when she's feeling competitive.

Erica, unfortunately, is not much better.

They spend the evening trying to one up each other, something that Stiles happily takes part in until he realizes that they're actually serious about whether granny smith or red delicious would be better for a game of bobbing for apples. It's still fun after that, because of course it is. They've already gone through both bottles of wine and have started on the ones in the basement — and how weird is that? Stiles lives in a house with a wine cellar — while the television belts out a fresh anthem of screams every few seconds from whatever horror movie Erica turned on. He can't not be having fun right now.

When the Nightmare on Elm Street comes on, it only makes sense to start reenacting some of the classic scenes. Loudly. And Lydia has a set of lungs on her, christ.

They're almost too busy screaming to notice the pounding on the front door. Almost.

Lydia and Erica don't notice, too busy yelling at each other, but Stiles is half sitting, half standing on the couch nearest to the front hallway. Also, he's observant. Or something. Either way, it feels like it takes ages to totter his way down the hallway, getting stuck in cobwebs twice and tripping over a wayward skeleton just outside of the foyer. It's a battlefield. Like that song.

"Love is a battlefield," he warbles to himself, blinking twice at the front door as if it'll magically open itself. He has to try the knob twice before it opens, and then quickly catch himself against the frame when he nearly tumbles outside.

His dad is staring at him, one eyebrow arched. He's got the crinkle between his brows, that one, the one that usually means he's going to run his hands through his hair next and say, "Dammit, Stiles, what did you do now?"

He tries to grin charmingly, only to promptly wince as Erica and Lydia start wailing again. Quickly, andvery carefully, he steps outside and shuts the door behind him. It, unfortunately, doesn't do much to muffle the screams.

"Everything okay here, son?" his dad asks. He says it like he actually means something with a whole lot more obscenities.

"Yo, D—" Something catches his eye over his dad's shoulder and he changes gears too quickly, tongue stumbling over itself. "—erek?"

That is definitely Derek, standing sheepishly behind Stiles' dad. He's wearing an old man sweater that surpasses even the ugliest hipster sweaters, Stiles' scarf wrapped haphazardly around his neck. The weird sort of puce color of the sweater clashes horribly with the lavender of the scarf. He looks adorable anyway. And hot. Also, slightly embarrassed.

Stiles stumbles, catching himself on the front door at the last second. That was close. Better just… let the door hold him up lest he embarasses himself anymore.

Derek coughs into his fist once, shuffling on his adorably sock covered feet, and waves. Itty bitty wave. Super cute, holy hell, Derek is such a total dork.

"You know," his dad drawls, staring Stiles down with a look of deep, deep disappointment. "I could have you arrested for disturbing the peace."

"No, you couldn't. The most you can do is give me a citation," Stiles says before he can censor himself, immediately clapping his hands over his face. He shakes his head once, eyes wide.

The look on his dad's face darkens, and he turns to Derek, plastering a fake smile on his face. "Mr. Hale, would you like to press charges against my lush of a son?"

Which is also total bullshit, because it's not like he was beating Derek up or anything. The most he'd get was a hefty ticket and the annoyance of having to appear in court. He'd have to like… practically assault his dad to get arrested. He knows this, even drunk as a skunk. But he's had this shit down since he was eleven.

Derek flinches away from Stiles' dad, eyes going wide. "Oh no," he protests, holding his hands up. "No, definitely not. I was just… concerned."

Derek gives the house another deeply confused look when Lydia lets out another scream, this time accompanied by a garble unintelligible of words. Stiles could be wrong, but he thinks that they might be at the bed scene.

"To be fair," Derek tells Stiles, looking ever so slightly apologetic. "It did sound like the three of you were being murdered horribly."

Dad snorts. "Still does."

"Aha," Stiles says, and then the door opens behind him.

He can't quite catch himself in time, and lands, rather spectacularly, on his ass at Lydia's feet. Erica peers down at him from over Lydia's shoulder and cackles.

"You're missing the best part," Lydia tells him, swaying. She pauses, fully absorbing the scene in front of her, eyes darting from Stiles on the ground, to his dad, in full uniform, to Derek behind him, and then finally to the patrol car in the driveway. Softly, she says, "Oh."

Erica also straightens up, a salacious little smirk on her face as she notices his dad. "Well hello there, Officer," she purrs, settling her chin on the top of Lydia's head. "What can we do for you tonight?"

Stiles groans, burying his head in his hands. "Oh my god, Erica. Stop hitting on my dad."

Erica shrugs, unapologetic, and smirks when Lydia bats her away. "What can I say? I like a man in uniform."

"Ms. Reyes," Dad says with a sigh, tipping his head. "Ms. Martin."

Lydia runs a hand through her hair, spine straightening. She's really good at pretending to be sober. Always has been, and it shows now as she visibly pulls herself together, offering his dad a small smile. "We're sorry for all the noise, Sheriff. We might have gotten into the spirit of the holiday a little bit too much."

"Something tells me that's not all you got into," his dad says pointedly.

Lydia flushes, and that's just too much for Stiles. She might be a good actor, but she is definitely still drunk, and that right there proves it.

Erica chooses this moment to lean the rest of the way out of the door and whistle softly. "And who areyou?"

Derek looks absolutely mortified. He probably wishes that he hadn't walked his cute little socked feet over here.

"Derek," he says shortly, shooting a quick look over his shoulder. Stiles follows his gaze, and sure enough, those are definitely his sisters in the window.

Erica's eyes widen. Garden of Eden, she mouths.

"Oh my god, when you said pumpkin guy was hot, I thought you meant like… normal hot," she confesses to Stiles in a stage whisper. "That is not normal hot, Stiles!"

"Okay!" Stiles says loudly, not looking at Derek as he springs to his feet. He ushers Lydia and Erica back inside, swatting Erica when she keeps turning to look at Derek in awe. "This was fun, lets not do this again! Like, ever. Don't worry, Dad, we'll be much quieter, just keep eating your greens and I'll see you on Sunday!"

He pauses, door halfway closed, and darts a quick look at Derek. "And uh, sorry about all this, Derek. Next time it sound like we're all being murdered, probably just ignore us. Or uh, maybe don't, because we might actually be getting murdered and uh, fuck. Good to see you!"

And then he slams the door behind him.

Erica and Lydia are giving him a look of deep judgement.

"Smooth, Stiles," Lydia sighs. "Very smooth."

Slowly, Stiles lets himself sink down the wall and buries his face in his hands.

Chapter 5: Love Potion #9

Chapter Text

Derek has been frequenting The Brew since about a week after he and Laura returned to Beacon Hills. Cora likes to make fun of him for, as she calls them, his hipster ways, but who doesn't like coffee? The caffeine might not affect him the way it does humans, but he's liked the stuff ever since his aunt let him try a sip of her latte when he was five years old.

Plus, The Brew has everything you could ever want out of a coffee shop. It's small and warm inside, which makes it a great place to hide out during the winter. The walls are painted an inviting shade of marigold and decorated with bright, eccentric paintings that vary from children playing with bubbles to huge watercolor landscapes that draw you right in. There's old, worn armchairs situated around the place instead of the unforgivably hard plastic of most Starbucks. The area surrounding the crackling fireplace is occupied by several couches and loveseats arranged in a lopsided semi-circle, and the employees are always polite and friendly, their smiles always refreshingly authentic. They seem to actually like their job, which is a breath of fresh air after New York.

It's a great little place, Derek doesn't care what Cora says. Their coffee is amazing and their pastries are to die for. The fact that it's a nice hidey-hole for when he's sick of his sisters is neither here nor there.

So when he comes through the doors the Tuesday before Halloween, he's not expecting any surprises. He's certainly not expecting Stiles to be blinking at him from the register, face twisted into an expression that Derek doesn't know what to do with.

"So, you know how you meet someone for the first time and then you start seeing them everywhere?" Stiles says when Derek warily makes his way over to the register. "What's up with that?"

Derek stares at him. "Are you calling me a stalker?"

Stiles blinks at him strangely, that expression still on his face. Bewildered astonishment, maybe? He cocks his head to the side, eying Derek up and down, pausing on the newly acquired leather jacket, before those dark eyes make their way back up to his face. He squints suspiciously. "Maybe. Are you? Because once is an incident, twice is a coincidence, and three times is a pattern. What are four and five?"

"You live next door, Stiles," Derek tells him patiently. "Are you going around accusing all the other neighbors of being stalkers?"

"I haven't seen the other neighbors as much as I've seen you. I haven't even seen your sisters as much as I've seen you and they live in the same house. And anyways, it's not like we're waving to each other from the driveway. We keep running into each other around town. Ergo, stalker."

Derek sighs. "I'm not stalking you, Stiles."

"Aha!" Stiles cries, pointing an indignant finger towards Derek's chest. "That's exactly what a stalker would say."

There's no winning this.

"Can I just get a large pumpkin spice latte to go, please?"

Stiles stops all at once, practically deflating as all the triumph drains out of him. He pouts as he jabs irritably at the cash register. "Yeah, okay, fine," he says. "That'll be five bucks."

Derek hands him a ten and tells him to keep the change.

Stiles makes a sound like an irate teakettle in response, but stuffs the change into the tip jar without further argument. When he sees Derek looking, he sticks his tongue out at him. It's childish, sure, but it's also kind of cute. But then, that's just Stiles all over isn't it?

Derek usually walks around a little bit while he waits, but this time he decides to stand at the far end of the counter, watching Stiles out of the corner of his eye as he fumbles around with the machines, muttering to himself as he fiddles with the syrups.

When he drops the latte in front of Derek, his good humor seems to have returned, because he's smiling again, an expectant look in his eye.

"Enjoy your stereotypical white girl drink, mister," he tells Derek, saluting him sarcastically as he goes back to wiping down the counters.

Derek leaves, feeling like he's missed something.

It's not until he reaches his car that he notices the note scrawled on the side in permanent marker.

A gift, it reads. For Beacon Hills' very own Bruce Wayne. Congrats on getting a coat btw, matches your personality perfectly. :p

There's an arrow drawn to the rim of the cup and Derek pops the lid off, curious despite himself. Inside, Stiles has drawn the Batman symbol in foam. Derek's not very surprised.

.

Derek comes back the next day. This isn't that unusual. When he sees Stiles at the counter, he makes a beeline straight for him.

"I'm not Batman and I'm not a stalker," Derek tells him.

Stiles raises an eyebrow at him. "Coulda fooled me, hero."

Derek bites his lip, thinking about Stiles flushed and swaying, avoiding his dad's eyes. It's barely been a week since the incident, but it's still fresh in Derek's mind. "I am sorry about that. I wasn't trying to get you in trouble with your dad or anything, I was just concerned. Laura wanted to go over there with a bat. So if anything that makes her Batman." He pauses. "Batwoman. Batgirl?"

"Honestly, I probably would have preferred the bat," Stiles tells him with a shrug. "My dad gave me so much shit about it on Sunday. But! The Hales' heroic tendencies have been noted for the record. No more screaming, promise."

"Good," Derek tells him, wavering for a moment in the resulting silence. Stiles looks at him expectantly. "Oh, pumpkin spice latte."

Stiles smirks at him, waggling a to-go cup his way. "Large?"

Derek nods jerkily, handing Stiles a five and stuffing the second one into the tip jar.

He waits on the far side of the counter again, watching Stiles hum the X-Files theme as he works on the drink. This close to Halloween, it's all The Brew has been playing. Derek's heard Thriller four times in the last week, and three of those times have been in this shop.

When Stiles hands him his drink, there's nothing written on the side.

"It's a smiley face this time," Stiles tells Derek before he can ask, his chin propped up comfortably on his chin as he watches Derek examine the cup. "You've got a nice smile. Much better than that scowl of yours," he explains with a wink.

.

Derek returns to The Brew four more times that week. Once on Thursday, twice on Friday, and again on Sunday. Each time, he gets something different. Thursday he gets a pumpkin, which Stiles tells him is for old times' sake. On Friday, he gets a ghost and a bat. And on Sunday he gets a frowny face, apparently because he didn't show up on Saturday.

"It was really cool, we had a costume contest for the neighborhood kids. Spooky music, even free pastries for our favorite patrons." He gives Derek a pointed look at that, nonchalantly passing a mocha concoction to the young girl waiting on Derek's other side. She doesn't even look up from her phone as she accepts the drink and thanks him, somehow navigating the furniture blindly without spilling a drop.

"Do I count as a favorite customer already?" Derek asks him, licking the whipped cream from the 'Brain Hemorrhage' that Stiles had talked him into. It's got little candy brains mixed into the cream on top.

Stiles watches him do it, eyes darkening.

"I don't know," he chokes out, his voice faintly hoarse. "What do you think?"

Derek grins brightly at him in response, listening in as he leaves to Stiles cursing his 'annoying perfect face.'

At home, Laura takes one look at him and asks, "What the hell has you on cloud nine today?"

Derek shakes his head, crunching bits of candy brain between his teeth. He smiles at her, which judging by her horrified expression, was the wrong thing to do, and answers innocently enough, "Nothing at all."

.

When Derek goes in on Halloween, Stiles isn't behind the register. Derek's had a lucky week, with Stiles being on shift whenever Derek came in, but it was bound to happen sooner or later. He'd learned on their third visit that Stiles had gone back to his first job to make some extra money for the holidays, but that didn't mean that he was constantly working.

It was silly to be disappointed.

He's turning to go, coffee in hand when Stiles appears at his side with a smile. Derek blinks at him, surprised. Stiles clearly isn't working at the moment, his cheeks flushed from the cold, uniform replaced by a cozy looking flannel. His nose is as red as his shirt.

"Hey," he says shyly, sidling closer to Derek. "Sorry, I just, I saw you over here and I couldn't resist."

Derek flushes when their shoulders bump together. God, he's so warm. "Do you always come into work on your days off?"

Stiles laughs, shaking his head. "Naw, I'm here with Allison and Savannah," he explains, gesturing towards a mother and daughter sitting on the sofa closest to the fire. They're a good looking pair, the girl practically a miniature of what is clearly her mother. Dark hair, dark eyes, the same dimples. "I'm keeping them company until Scott gets out of work for trick-or-treating."

"Best friend's daughter?" Derek asks, thinking back to when they first met. Stiles had said that his best friend's daughter needed the best pumpkin for her Jack-o-Lantern carving competition. He's willing to bet that this is the one.

"Yup. That's her. I could introduce you…?"

Derek is already shaking his head. "No, no, I'm sorry. I've got to get back to the house if I'm going to meet this deadline."

Stiles' face falls in disappointment, already plastering a fake smile on his face. "No, man, that's totally cool. You've got shit to do, it's all right."

"Hey," Derek whispers, reaching out to catch one of Stiles' flailing hands. He holds it for a moment, watching the red flush that creeps up Stiles' neck, then squeezes. "Another time, okay? I want to meet them, I do. I've just got a lot of stuff to do."

Stiles sighs, leaning in to Derek for a moment, swaying as if dizzy. "Okay," he says, squeezing back once before letting go. "But hey, hand me your coffee real quick. Beverly is great, but she got it wrong."

Bemused, Derek hands the coffee over, watching as Stiles reaches across the counter for something, then pointedly turns his back on Derek, doing god knows what to his coffee.

It only takes a minute or so, but when Stiles turns to press the coffee back into Derek's hands, he's smiling again.

"Now don't open that until you're in your car, okay?" he warns Derek.

Derek frowns at him. "What, did you spit in it?"

"Ew no, I would never do that." Stiles' nose crinkles up in disgust. "Just trust me, all right?"

Reluctantly, Derek agrees, saying one final goodbye before making his way out the door. The walk to his car feels like it takes forever, and Derek's barely gotten the door closed before he's tearing off the lid, releasing a puff of steam into the chilly air.

There, drawn into the foam of his latte, is a perfect heart.

He looks back at the shop, debates going back in and asking Stiles out once and for all, but quickly discards the idea. He really does have a lot of stuff to get done. And besides, he thinks, pulling back on the gear shift, it's not like they don't have the time.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

"You've gotta put yourself out there, man," Scott had told him over a bottle of cabernet sauvignon that Stiles had unapologetically stolen from Lydia's stash.

"Just tell him how you feel," Allison added over coffee two days later, giving Stiles a friendly smile and a pat on the back.

"Better yet, show him how you feel, if you know what I mean," was Erica's sage advice, with an honest to god wink wink nudge nudge.

Lydia had glared at Erica, but ultimately just sighed and told him, "But make it something meaningful. You could strip naked and wait in his bed, but if you're already living a romcom — and trust me, you are — you might as well just romance the man."

His dad had just looked at him for a moment, his eyes warm, affectionate, and maybe just a little proud. Then he'd given Stiles the best advice of them all, clapping him on the back with a wry grin and adding, "Just be yourself, Stiles. If he's worth it, that'll be more than enough."

And Stiles had done that. He'd put himself out there. Made it something meaningful and sweet and totally out of a stupid romcom. And he'd been himself about it.

The part of him that had bought into Lydia's chick flick mumbo jumbo had expected Derek to charge back inside the shop and kiss him senseless right then and there. There would be swooning and cheesy music and maybe a little too much heavy petting, but nobody ever got arrested for public indecency in those kind of movies, so it was all cool.

Instead, he'd watched Derek's car idle in the parking lot for two minutes before it had pulled out of the lot.

It's been over a month and Stiles hasn't really seen Derek since.

Well, that's not really fair. He has seen him. Always in passing, never more than a distracted wave or the back of Derek's car pulling out of the driveway as he was pulling in. He's seen Laura and Cora around a bit, but never for more than a minute at a time or a glimpse through an open window.

And Stiles, he knows that Derek's busy. Cora had told him as much the one time that he'd caught her at the mailbox. Apparently some stuff was going on that needed handled, legal shit and job shit and something about a trip to New York to get some stuff out of a holding box there.

But it still kind of hurts.

Derek likes him. He likes Derek. If this were really like a movie, that would be enough.

"Stiles, there are always unnecessary subplots keeping the main characters from each other in those movies," Lydia tells him. She's juggling four huge shopping bags and is holding a pair of heels at eye-level, scrutinizing them with a critical eye. With a sniff she puts them back on a shelf.

He shouldn't have agreed to Christmas shopping with her the week before Christmas. But he had the day off, and he'd figured, why not? What could it hurt. Allison was busy with Savannah and micro-managing plans for the annual McCall-Argent Christmas and Erica wouldn't be caught dead in a mall with Lydia after what happened last time. So Stiles had said yes. Mistake number one.

"Yeah," he sighs, scrunching up his nose. "But it still sucks."

"He'll come around," Lydia says with a short shrug. "It's not like he's avoiding you on purpose. The man thinks the sun shines out of your ass."

"Does he really though?" Stiles whines, accepting a box of gaudy leopard-print heels from Lydia and stacking it on top of the rest. Erica's gift, he guesses, because he doesn't think that they know anyone else who would wear those heels unironically and love them to pieces. But Erica definitely would.

Lydia stops what she's doing, turning and fixing him with a look of disdain.

"Stiles," she says flatly. "There's so much chemistry between you two that I could level this whole town twice over."

Stiles sighs, tearing his eyes away from her. A dozen feet away from them an employee in a santa hat is trying to placate a woman who's so busy berating her that she hasn't even noticed that her spawn are climbing the clearance racks. That train wreck is easier to watch than Lydia.

"Yeah, all right," he mutters, making a valiant attempt at not sounding too despondent.

Lydia pats his hand. "Patience, Stiles. The hard part is already over."

Lies, Stiles thinks. Waiting is the hard part.

.

Winters in northern California are never super severe. They get snow, they get rain, but temperatures aren't usually too godawful. This year though, it's practically summer. Stiles is a dude who has fully embraced the beauty that is layers, even in the height of summer, but if he wasn't, he'd be wearing t-shirts and shorts.

It's been a good day. He'd spent most of it with Allison and Savannah, and after finger painting adventures and Christmas baking lost their sparkle, he'd had dinner with his dad. So he gets home late, parking the car and heading indoors for a little after dinner wine. Bed. Maybe some gaming if he's feeling up to it.

It's only after he's changed into the pajamas that Erica had given him ("Because Lydia's not going to tolerate you walking around in boxer anymore than I will.") that he remembers the mail.

He thinks about ignoring it, but Lydia's expecting textbooks any day now, and she'd never forgive him if they got stolen.

Good day. No reason to expect anything unusual. And it's warm, so he can head out in his pajamas without playing hop-scotch in the frosty grass. He's even humming a little bit as he reaches the mailbox, peering inside where, sure enough, Lydia's textbooks are waiting, wedged in amongst the usual crap.

He's pondering how best to extract them when it happens.

A crunch of grass nearby. Footsteps, gait too quick to be normal.

This is it, Stiles thinks. This is the day that his father always warned him about. He's going to be murdered horribly in front of his own home — in stupid Frozenpajamas no less — because he trusted suburbia too much and left his mace inside.

Stiles turns, too slowly—

The creature in front of him is hideous. It's rotting skin is a mottled blue-gray, ugly, and clearly dead. There's a ragged gash stretching from the corner of its pale lips to the top of its cheekbones, where it gapes, revealing the yellowed bone underneath. It's clothing is torn, dark hair slick with fresh blood and what look like chunks of brain.

And the thing is, even as he opens his mouth to scream, a part of him preparing to become the first victim of the zombie apocalypse, there's another rational part of him that insists that he knows this creature. That beyond all that rotting skin, there's a pair of eyes staring back at him, crinkled up into a warm, familiar smile.

That's Derek, his brain insists, too late.

Stiles screams.

It's not a manly scream. There's nothing fake about it, pure terror and adrenaline surging through his veins. Survival instinct clashes with logic and reason. His heart is beating so fast that he's sure he's going to catapult straight into a panic attack before he can so much as get a word in edgewise.

Derek's eyes widen, startled, the smile fading from his lips. And then, and then— Derek's eyes turn.

They flare a bright, unnatural shade of blue. His features twist, his brow furrowing heavily as his mouth drops open to reveal a sharp row of fangs. Quick as a blink, Derek spins on the spot, one hand going to Stiles' chest as he crouches in front of him. His eyes dart back and forth, scanning the street for what? Danger? Witnesses?

Protective, a portion of Stiles' brain insists.

Monster, the other part of it howls.

And Stiles, there's a lot that he can handle. Zombie face paint? Whatever. It's not Halloween anymore, but sure, why not. Zombie crawls are a thing, and Derek's sister does weird makeup shit, doesn't she? But this is something else. There's no faking the beastial growl rumbling away inside of Derek's chest, the growl that Stiles can feel through the clawed hand pressed to his chest. No faking those eyes, brighter than a fucking supernova, or the sudden drop of fangs that definitely weren't there a second ago.

This is something real.

So Stiles does what anybody would. He wrenches Lydia's textbooks from the mailbox and clubs Derek across the head with it. And then he runs, not pausing even when he hears Derek call out for him, beating a path across the yard, up the steps, and through the front door.

Alone in the foyer of a dark, lonely house, he lets himself slide to the floor.

He stares at the shoes that he'd kicked off when he got home until they don't make sense anymore. And then, quietly, he freaks the fuck out.

.

Stiles sleeps with a bat that night. Well, he tries to.

Even when Erica and Lydia get home, he can't bring himself to go downstairs and tell them about what he saw. They're safe. They got in okay. Derek didn't attack them, and the door is locked. He'd bar the windows, but somehow, that seems excessive.

Around three in the morning, he gives up on sleep and boots up his computer. The cursor blinks at him, silently mocking.

With shaking hands, he types a word into the google search bar.

Werewolves.

.

It's a subdued Christmas. Stiles goes through all the motions. He and his dad have Christmas with the McCalls and the Argents, same as they have every year since Scott and Allison got married. They exchange presents. He plays with Savannah. They eat. He and Allison put their heads together and somehow keep everyone from fighting. And when he gets home, he makes fun of Erica's Christmas sweater and takes the subsequent punch to the bicep like a champ.

He tries not to think about Derek. Or the word werewolf. Or anything supernatural that he'd managed to dredge up in the great google search of 2015.

But it's still there, eating away at the back of his mind.

Because really, what was Derek's game?

He's had multiple opportunities to off Stiles, if he truly was a homicidal killer. Maybe he was like Remus Lupin, Stiles reasons. Perfectly nice dude, except for how he'd try to eat your face off on a full moon. He hadn't come across much in his research binge that he didn't already know, but all of it seemed to agree on the full moon thing.

But that didn't make sense either. He'd seen Derek on a full moon. He'd got all up in his space and wrapped a fucking scarf around his neck and Derek hadn't killed him then.

Plus, his brain reminds him. Derek had tried to protect him the other night.

He was sure of it. All signs pointed to that.

But then why hadn't Derek explained himself?

Stiles scoffs, lip curling. Oh yeah, he remembers. Because he'd run away like a little bitch.

.

Stiles isn't ashamed to admit it: he sulks. He sulks like nobody's business. He is a Grade A sulker. In third grade, he'd once refused to talk to Scott for a full week because the jerk stole his juicy juice during lunch. It's practically second nature to him.

He curls up in his bed and binge watches Netflix documentaries. He eats a lot of junk food. He steals Erica's ice cream. And he avoids the Hales.

A week ago, that would have been easy. The Hales have always been in and out of their house. They've got their own busy lives to deal with and that's… whatever. It was pretty shitty in the aftermath of Halloween, after Stiles put his heart on the line and got a whole lot of nothing in return.

But now, they're everywhere. Cora attempts to accost him as he's leaving to visit his dad. Laura waves to him when he's bringing in the groceries. Derek, always out of the corner of his eye, looking like he's about to head over and faltering, hands balling into fists at his sides.

They always stop just short of the door though, which briefly makes Stiles stop and wonder if he should reevaluate the nature of their supernatural...ness. Maybe they're vampires. But no. He's pretty sure it's werewolves. What Stiles saw wasn't as simple as Derek turning into a wolf. Hell, it was closer to a Buffy vampire transformation, but there was something distinctly wolfish about that growl. The glowing eyes. The teeth.

He could be wrong. But he's 85% sure that there's a pack of Big Bad Wolfs living next door. Jury's still out on whether that makes him Little Red Riding Hood or the Three Pigs, but either way, he's pretty sure the wolf had tried to eat them all in the end.

By the time New Year's rolls around, he's mostly gotten himself out of his funk. Erica and Lydia are both off with their boyfriends — or in Lydia's case: distraction — and he's at home, drinking a beer on the porch because he can't be bothered with showing his face at Scott and Allison's. His dad will be there, and he'll definitely be bummed that Stiles isn't, but he'd seemed understanding over the phone when Stiles had told him that he'd needed a night to himself. Stiles… hasn't exactly been himself lately. They know what's up. And thankfully, other than suspicious looks from Lydia, no one has actually approached him about it.

He's almost expecting it when he hears the porch steps creak under someone's foot. A bit foolishly, he purposefully keeps his back to the supernatural creature.

Laura gracefully takes the seat next to him. Stiles doesn't even look at her.

"Is this the part where I say, 'What big eyes you have?'"

At his side, Laura snorts. Stiles takes a chance and glances at her.

Despite the fact that he's crossed paths with both Cora and Derek multiple times, he's never actually met their sister. Seen her from afar, sure. But actually spoken to her, face to face? Hell to the no.

She's a lot like them. Same dark hair, same flawless bone structure. She's wearing one of the ugliest Christmas sweaters that he's ever seen and she's still intimidatingly beautiful.

Her eyes are the exact same shade as Derek's.

She's smirking at him, one eyebrow arched in amusement as she assesses him. She reaches out and snags his beer right out of his hands, taking a long pull before setting it down on the table behind them.

Her eyes flare the same as Derek's had, that same inhuman glow, only hers are a bright, searing red. She's still smirking as she says, "Only if I get to say, 'All the better to see you with, my dear.' I've always wanted to say that to someone."

Stiles swallows, his throat dry. He wonders if he could catch lycanthropy from sharing a bottle of beer. Maybe it's like mono.

"I know why you're here."

Laura's other eyebrow joins the first. Her smirk creeps wider. "Do you?"

Stiles narrows his eyes. "You're here to cow me into not telling anyone. If I talk, you'll have to kill me, right?"

Laura tilts her head, considering. A long strand of hair slips free from the messy bun she has it in. "I would appreciate your discretion," she says at last. "But that's not actually why I'm here."

That honestly, truly surprises him. He blinks, turning his body so that he's facing her. "It isn't?"

"Nope."

He frowns. "Then why…?"

Laura sighs, leaning backwards into her chair and drawing her legs up onto the seat with her. She settles her arms on her knees and watches him for a moment. If he didn't know that she could rip his throat out in under a minute, he'd think that she actually looked vulnerable. "I'm here to tell you that you're breaking my brother's heart."

Stiles jolts. "I'm—"

"You heard me," Laura cuts in, her eyes narrowing. "None of us have had it easy, but Derek's different. His skin's never been as thick as ours. He feels things more than we do. Blames himself for everything, even when it isn't his fault."

She breaks off with an irritated noise, glaring out at the yard as if she's plotting against the hedges. "Look," she says. "We aren't a danger to you. I know that with what you saw it might be difficult to believe that, but we aren't monsters. We're people. Same as you are, just with a couple added bonuses."

"I wouldn't exactly call fangs and claws just a few 'added bonuses,'" he tells her dryly. From the look she gives him, she is not amused.

"It's not just that. We hear, see, and smell things better. Heal faster. Move faster. But we don't want to hurt anyone. We just want to live in peace. And my brother deserves a little bit of peace more than anyone."

I will fight you on this, her body language says.

Stiles decides to chance possible exposure to lycanthropy and reaches for his beer. "Say I believe you," he ventures, idly swishing the dregs of his beer around. Because honestly, he does. If he's honest with himself, he's known since that first night that Derek wouldn't hurt him. Derek, who'd called the cops just because he was afraid that Stiles was getting hurt. Derek, who is a total dorky puppy at heart. "What exactly am I supposed to do? Head over to your lair and make nice with the Big Bad Wolf? Play Little Red?"

Laura doesn't even bat an eye. "Whatever kinks you have are between you and my brother. You wanna roleplay? Fine. But talk to him. And do it now."

She unfolds from her seat, getting to her feet easily and stretching her arms above her head. When she's done, she turns to him. The smirk is gone, replaced with a look of steely resolve. "I protect my pack, Stiles. I'm letting you do this because I think that you could be good for Derek. He doesn't let himself love easily, and you…" She falters for a moment, blinking rapidly as she tries to settle on the right words. "Just don't hurt him."

Stiles bites his lip, then decides to try for a smile. "Is this the part where you threaten to rip my throat out after all?"

She smiles back, grimly. "I said we didn't mean you any harm and I meant it. But trust me? If you hurt my brother, all bets are off."

"Scary," he remarks, nodding approvingly. "I think we'll get along fine."

"You better hope so," she tells him, heading down the porch steps. "Cora and I are going to get some fireworks. We'll be back before the ball drops. You better be there."

He salutes her with his beer as she goes, watching as she heads back into the house. He keeps watching the house until he hears the car start up. And then he sucks in a deep breath and gets to his feet.

Show time.

.

The first and only time that he'd been in the Hale house, he'd used the back door. Which, hardy har har, so funny. But that means that this is the first time he's ever approached their home from the front. Oddly, it feels more imposing that way. The door is painted a warm burgundy, complete with a fancy brass knob and a matching knocker. It's nice. Homey. It should be inviting, but mostly, yeah, it's pretty intimidating. Just like everything about the Hales.

He loiters there until he remembers Laura's words, and realizes that Derek probably already knows he's here. Super hearing is a total bitch. Stiles' heart is going to give him away immediately.

All right, Stiles, he tells to nut up or shut up.

He knocks.

And sure enough, Derek pulls the door open pretty much immediately, sending a waft of fresh, food-scented warmth washing over him. Stiles' mouth immediately starts watering. He smells herb and spiced meat of some kind against a backdrop of pine. So the Hales are the type to go for a real tree. Who woulda guessed.

Derek stands there staring at him, his eyes sort of wide.

He looks good. His hair is mussed, cheeks flushed. The leather jacket that he'd acquired isn't anywhere in sight, and he's all snuggled up in a sweater just as gaudy as Laura's. His is green, with little knitted wolves howling away at a full moon. It's kind of hilarious.

He's wearing Stiles' scarf.

"Hi," Stiles says, licking his lips nervously.

When Derek just stands there, still staring at him, he shifts awkwardly in the doorway. "So. Can I come in?"

Derek still doesn't say anything, but he does step back. Stiles is counting that as a win.

Entering the wolf's den doesn't feel as sinister as it should. Mostly because… Well, it's not exactly the dank, dark place you would expect. Stiles knows what the house looks like on the inside already, but it's different now, in the aftermath of the holidays. It was always pretty homey. The type of home you'd expect out of a magazine, with warm wooden tables and cozy looking couches. It's kind of what he'd always expected the Gryffindor common room to look like, but with splashes of extra color rather than just red and gold.

Here and there are objects that don't quite fit right. Gaudy knick-knacks, old raggedy throws, but mostly it's just nice. There's a large Douglas fir in one corner of the living room, adjacent to the cold, unused fireplace. It's decorated with everything from tinsel to popcorn strands, bright lights reflecting happily off of the bulbs. The whole place smells like food and Christmas and family.

It isn't like a wolf's lair at all.

We're people, just like you, Laura had said.

"Laura spoke to you," Derek says abruptly into the quiet, making Stiles jump. He spins, tearing his eyes away from the tree and almost smacks his knee into a side table. Derek couldn't have heard…?

As if reading his mind, Derek shrugs and explains. "She smelled like you when she came back in, and you still smell like her too."

"Damn dude," Stiles whispers in awe. "That is one hell of a sniffer."

God, she hadn't even touched him. "But yeah, we talked. I mean, I was gonna come over here anyway, she just got the ball rolling."

Derek lifts an eyebrow at him. Wordlessly, he turns around, crossing through the living room and into the kitchen. Stiles follows.

When he catches up, Derek's at the stove, ladling something out of a saucepan and into a brightly colored mug. "Hot chocolate?" he offers.

Stiles blinks. "Yeah, sure."

It's homemade. Because of course it is. No Swiss Miss for the Hales. They've gotta be fancy.

They end up in the living room, seated on opposite sides of the sofa and awkwardly avoiding each other's eyes as they sip their hot chocolate. Stiles still thinks the chocolate is stupidly fancy, but damn it is divine.

"So…" Stiles starts. "I'm sorry for hitting you with an advanced mathematics textbook. That wasn't cool of me, man. Nobody should have math flung at them like that."

Derek smiles a little, just a tiny quirk of the lips. It may be small, but it's something. "I'm sorry for sneaking up on you. I forgot that I was wearing the makeup. When you screamed it… startled me."

Stiles offers his own smile. "I kinda guessed."

Derek nods, looking down into his half-full mug.

"You thought I was in danger, didn't you? That's why you went all 'Grr, Argh.'" Stiles says, miming claws. "You were trying to protect me."

"Constant vigilance," Derek offers with a grim smile. "Our family hasn't had the best luck in the past. I learned the hard way that anticipating a threat is the best defense."

Stiles goes quiet, thinking. The Hale fire, of course. Probably supernatural related. Definitely not an accident. Stiles can't imagine being so on edge all the time.

"Any, ah, new threats recently?"

Derek shrugs. "A couple wendigos tried to cross into the town about a month ago. We stopped them. Nothing since then."

"Just after Halloween," Stiles guesses, his eyes going wide. "No wonder I never saw you."

Derek's cheeks go a little bit pink. "It wasn't just that. Laura and I had some things that we still needed to settle in New York and work's been pretty rough. But I definitely wasn't avoiding you on purpose."

"That's good," Stiles murmurs. He takes another sip of his chocolate. "I'd hate to think that I, uh, overstepped."

"You didn't." Derek bites his lip, staring at his lap. When he glances up, his eyes are wide open and earnest. "I like you, Stiles."

Stiles feels something warm flutter in his chest. He starts to smile. "That's definitely good news. Because I like you too. Kind of a lot."

Derek's eyes dart away, then back again. His head ducks, almost bashfully. He licks his lips. "We didn't do any of this right, did we?"

Stiles laughs. "Sure we did. I have it on good authority that we'readorable."

Derek's cheeks flush even deeper, his nose crinkling when he smiles. "So. What now? Do we just… start over?"

Stiles looks at him seriously.

He thinks about all the things that he knows about Derek. He likes pumpkin spice lattes. He hums songs under his breath when he thinks that no one's listening. He's horrible about dressing for the weather. He'll jump into leaf piles if you push him on it. He's protective. Really protective about the people he cares about. His first instinct when he hears people screaming is to call the cops. And he'll willingly give up a pumpkin just so a little girl that he doesn't even know can win a Jack-o-Lantern carving contest.

He also just so happens to be a werewolf.

Stiles purses his lips. He doesn't want to forget all of that and start over. What he really wants right now is a kiss.

"No," he tells Derek, setting his mug down on the coffee table and scooting across the couch, until he's pressed right up against Derek's side. He takes Derek's mug from him and sets it down next to his own. "I don't want to start all over again."

Derek blinks at him, his eyes bright. "Then what—" he starts, going quiet when Stiles presses a finger to his lips. He turns fully to face Derek, drawing his leg up into his lap.

"First, I have a question."

Derek nods slowly, so Stiles removes his finger and leans in, until his lips are hovering just over Derek's. He exhales slowly, watching Derek's eyelashes flutter.

"Can you pass lycanthropy on through saliva?"

Derek's mouth twists with startled surprise. His eyes widen. "What? No. I couldn't even—"

Stiles smiles.

"Good," he says, and this time, he interrupts Derek with a kiss.

Notes:

Come visit me on tumblr! My writing blogand my primary one.

Series this work belongs to:

• « Part 52 of the Dark Month Collection series

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